BROOKLYN, MI – Sunday’s FireKeepers 400 at Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn is the third NASCAR Cup Series starts at the 2-mile oval for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) driver Chase Briscoe. It comes following an 11th-place finish at Richmond (Va.) Raceway last Sunday.
The result was Briscoe’s second top-15 finish in three races and his third finish inside the top-20 since Richard Boswell took over as crew chief of the No. 14 SHR entry on June 25 at Nashville (Tenn.) Superspeedway.
Last year at Michigan, Briscoe finished the first stage in the top 10 but ultimately left with a 20th-place result.
“We were so tight,” said Briscoe. “Some cautions worked out in our favor at the beginning to have the chance to get upfront, but in the end, we just couldn’t really get the balance right. I think we’ve had some time to work on that and hope that we have found something to correct that and put us in a better position. We probably could’ve finished a little better, if I hadn’t gotten into the wall, so I think we were probably a little better than what that finish shows.”
Briscoe says Michigan is a lot faster track than other intermediate-syle tracks on the schedule.
“It’s a lot faster. You don’t have the same racing area as you do at some others,” he added. “We’re all really fighting to run the same line, and when you’re trying to keep up your momentum getting into a corner, that becomes a really tight space. You can’t really race Michigan the same as you do Fontana or the smaller intermediate tracks. You really need to have a car that handles well, like anywhere else, but you need to make sure you’re not making it worse with how you manage the speed we carry into the corners.”
The Mahindra Tractors-sponsored driver’s best finish at Michigan came in 2021, his first Cup Series appearance at the track. He was running well inside the top 10 when contact with Kurt Busch damaged his Ford Mustang with just three laps remaining in the race. He held on for an 11th-place finish.
Prior to the Cup Series, Briscoe never finished outside of the top 10 in his three previous starts there, each in a different series. In his lone NASCAR Xfinity Series start in 2019, he started 14th and finished seventh. He finished ninth in his only NASCAR Truck Series start there in 2017, and second in the 2016 ARCA Menards Series event.
